About Walter Harris
Walter Harris, 83, American chess player.
Explore other notable deaths in 2024 or deaths in October 2024.
The Deaths Archive presents
How well do you know Walter Harris?
Explore their life. Test your knowledge. Beat the challenge.
10 questions · One legacy · How much do you really know?
Challenge your friends
Play together in real-time.
Advertisement
Full Biography
|Walter Harris (September 28, 1941 – October 12, 2024) was an American chess player.
Life and career
Harris was the first African-American chess player to earn the USCF title of National Master. He had a remarkable 5th-place finish in the 1959 U.S. Junior Open. At that tournament, he was unable to rent a room at the tournament's hotel (Sheraton-Fontenelle Hotel) due to racial segregation. Despite his and Anthony Saidy's protests, the hotel managers were adamant, forcing Harris to go to another hotel for accommodations.
Harris, along with Frank Street Jr., Leroy Jackson (Muhammad), and Kenneth Clayton, have been regarded as pioneers of African-Americans in chess in the 1960s.
Harris studied physics at University of California, Los Angeles, and was a career physicist at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
Harris died on October 12, 2024, at the age of 83.
Content from Wikipedia — licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
Interactive
Test Your Knowledge – Trivia Challenge
How well do you know this person's life and legacy?
No account needed to play. Sign in to keep your score on the leaderboard.
Books & Media
Find books, audiobooks and films about Walter Harris on Amazon.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.
Sources
- Wikipedia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Harris_(chess_player)
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Sep 26, 2026
- View article
- Sep 26, 2026
People who died on October 12
Spotted an error?
Help us keep the archive accurate. Report a correction with a source.
Report an error for Walter Harris →Advertisement
